On September 8, 2022, the law firm Raue brought the now fifth proceeding on the right of descent before the Federal Constitutional Court.
The proceedings concern the legal parent-child assignment in queer family constellations. Two married women had had a child together by means of a private sperm donation. Unlike in the case of a heterosexual couple, however, the wife of the mother giving birth was not automatically assigned as the child’s second legal parent. Thus, to this day, the child born in wedlock is considered the child of a single parent. The application with which the family wanted to have the parenthood of the co-mother judicially determined remained unsuccessful through all instances.
The constitutional complaint was written by attorney Lucy Chebout in cooperation with family law professor Dr. Anne Sanders, M.Jur. (Oxford) and constitutional law expert Dr. Dana-Sophia Valentiner. It is intended to contribute to the fundamental clarification that the current regulations in the law of parentage are unconstitutional because, among other things, they violate the child’s fundamental right to a state guarantee of parental care and upbringing as well as the fundamental rights of the child and its two mothers to equal treatment.
In four cases represented by Raue, family courts are convinced that the current parentage law is unconstitutional. They have suspended the proceedings and submitted specific norm control applications to the Federal Constitutional Court (see KG, Beschluss vom 24. März 2021 – 3 UF 1122/20; OLG Celle, Beschluss vom 24. März 2021 – 21 UF 146/20 AG Brandenburg an der Havel and AG Munich, decision of November 11, 2021 – 542 F 6701/21).
(12 September 2022)